When it comes to policy, the majority of Americans are to the left of mainstream Democrats. That’s not how they would identify themselves, but that’s where most of the country lies politically.
So a big part of what we face (much as @PsiPhiGrrrl pointed out) is the disconnect between what people are told by the media and what politicians actually stand for.
That single-payer universal healthcare system that Republicans and Libertarians warn us is the first step on “the Road to Serfdom” ending in a socialist hellscape? The idea regularly polls at 70% approval by all Americans. No selling needed; they know it’s better than what they have.
But sure, it’s those on the left who are “extremists”, just as bad as the right-wingers who obstruct and water-down any attempt to implement it. Please.
Then maybe the democrats should get better at the message.
In my county the only politicians I currently see reaching out to the voters are the wackadoodles, with no one to counter their nonsense they get to say anything.
Even our governor is missing in action.
I don’t get it. Why can’t they connect with the people?
And I don’t want them pointing out what’s bad about the republicans, I want them to tell people why they are better for my district,the state, and the country.
If their only qualification is they ain’t as bad as the republican, that’s a bad message. Tell us what’s good about you.
Imagine how Canadians feel. 90% of us live with 150 miles of the US border. We’re all looking south with increasing nervousness these days. 
Honestly?
Because, and this is just my opinion, I don’t think they believe the system was ever about representing people. I think they believed the system was about “getting theirs.” You see this with corruption and graft, that the higher you go up in the political landscape, the more corruption and graft become possible, and everyone keeps it a big secret.
The tea party movement, though, was a populist movement. So the people that came in through that REALLY believed they would represent the people. Establishment forces on both sides didn’t put money behind them because, well, they’re not just whackadoodles but they’re not known , controllable , buyable quantities.
And then they started winning.
The reason they’re connecting with people is because they still believe the system is built to represent them, and that they’re there to represent the people. It’s why almost all of these upstarts are FAR below the average age of the overall house or senate.
And that’s what’s going on. Look at your state senators or representative. Have they needed to win anything for 20 years?
My rep hasn’t needed to win ever. Yet he has done absolutely nothing for us. Nothing.
Surely he’ll be surprised when he’s replaced by a republican.
Dems need to step the fuck up.
The white supremacist movement has for sure. I don’t think it full colonized the GOP until Obama won (not that it was his fault for that, but it was a major recruitment tool), but you’re right that this has been a shift since Reagan (though you could argue since Nixon). The more openly racist figures in the party (Pat Buchannan) have been more on the fringes, but that wing is now fully dominating thanks to the white backlash to Obama and then Trump giving full throated support to the racist wing of the party.
Absolutely the case.
Reagan ending the fairness doctrine was a major contributor to this going “mainstream” too.
Even more independent outlets that supposedly aren’t backed by corporations depend on corporate donations and can police themselves (NPR).
Yep. Absolutely! And media outlets who want to have some integrity feel the need to “both sides” everything.
I often wonder if they want the “Trump years” back because it was so good for ratings…
I really do think about the Yugoslav wars, and how people who had lived as neighbors in Bosnia ended up being willing to commit acts of genocide against their neighbors of the “wrong” religion (mostly against Muslims). I don’t know if people remember how shocking that was to see that country unravel after the generally peaceful end of communist control across much of the Eastern Bloc. No one expected Yugoslavia (which was the most western facing communist state) to end up as a fucking blood bath that is still part of the political landscape there today.
Literally no one here argued that, dude. None the less, the Senate is retrograde and anti-democratic. More so than it used to be (as senators USED to be appointed, not elected). Also, what @nightflyer said… Also, as an actual historian, I would argue that the US was never an actual democracy until at least the 1960s, and even then, it’s been pretty precarious. We have one party looking to take votes away from some people just so they can stay in power. We’re dealing with serious anti-democratic elements in this country.
The ones that are more left leaning are messaging just fine. The centrist democrats are also messaging just as they want to . The problem is the centrists.
Or as the old chair of my department used to say “millions of canadians, perched on our northern border”… I think he got that from that Canadian Bacon movie?
It has nothing to do with “all the people,” it just offers more power to some people than others
“This is how it is, get over it,” is neither a great insight nor a convincing argument
A comfortable lie beats an inconvenient truth.
A lie travels around the world while the truth is still getting it’s boots on.
Again, as @PsiPhiGrrrl pointed out, look at the loss of the Fairness Doctrine and the corporate control of media. It’s not really the fault of Democrats when the messaging is controlled by conservatives at best and fascists at worst.
It’s the embodiment of the complacency of people with unearned privilege who have no actual skin in the game.
Fixed that for ya.
There’s a bit from some famous stand up guy along those lines as well. The gist was that we’re all standing in a row looking south, like kids at a pet store window longing for the puppies. Although I don’t think that bit has aged very well. 
within a state, though, senatorial seats can’t be gerrymandered at the pleasure of the state legislature.
Nope; they rely on voter suppression to cheat on Senate seats.
Yeah, that sort of thing doesn’t end well. If you want to avoid a civil war, creating a militia is the wrong way to go.
The “it’s not a democracy, it’s a republic” take is so dumb. It can be both. What, the Netherlands isn’t a democracy, it’s a constitutional monarchy?
Any modern democracy needs to be a representative democracy. There is no way everyone can be sufficiently informed to decide on all matters of state. Some of us have other jobs to do, you know? Now, you can make the case that the methodology of determining your representatives gives unfair advantages to some, and I’ll be in complete agreement (for the US, I mean). But you need to accurately describe what the problem is in order to fix it, and not just shout incendiary nonsense.
Because of years and decades of the other side establishing a narrative that casts them as the bad guys and their ideas as unworkable whatever they say and because the other side has control over the media and near endless funds to keep up that narrative.
Bicameralism in the US developed under the colonial system so that there was representation for the colonies under the empire. A few of the colonies were unicameral- and remained so as states until far later. I think one reverted to be unicameral as well. The US was unicameral under the Articles of Confederation.
The majority of democracies are unicameral. And many that are bicameral don’t give equal power to both houses because of the undemocratic nature of a bicameral system based upon power by region instead of by voters.
One of the important reasons the Founders chose to have a Senate as it was structured that is not often mentioned in history was to preserve property rights. What property rights were being discussed at that time that were inimical with a democracy?
Slavery, of course.
It didn’t stop when Trump lost the election, and it won’t stop with the next election or the one after that. We can always lose, but we can never “win,”, although we will have our victories. The prospect of a forever fight is one of the things that is so disheartening, along with the visceral hate on display. .
It will be an on-going fight no matter how things shake out, but in terms of a civil war and/or a one-party regime coming to pass we’re at an inflection point in the next few years.
The conservative mindset if fundamentally a fearful one. Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of the “other” (immigrants, brown people, non-Xtians, the non-cis, “costal elites,” etc.) is what drives them. And whipping up that fear is the job of Fox, NewsMax, the NRA, and the Gop. Because for the most part they have abandoned the idea trying to get a majority by appealing to the voters in the middle but instead try to make their base extra-motivated to vote. But of course fearful, desperate people are clannish and more prone to violence.
The crappier thing are, the more “clannish” people become. The circle of people that they they feel trust and allegiance to becomes smaller and their allegiance becomes more extreme. It’s “you’re with us or against us,” with little thought for others outside their circle. The fear and hatred leaves little concern for wider groupings, like humanity, the nation as a whole, or any group that includes those who think differently.
Lots of things contribute to this narrowing of allegiance. The atomization of the media market is one. Instead of getting news from three national networks cable and the internet allow people to choose to watch news that appeals only to their pre-conceived notions. Even as the have eliminated de jure racial segregation, we have become more economically segregated. Many people do not have much contact with people outside of their race and class. That makes it easier to regard them as part of the “other” to be feared and hated rather than as fellow countrymen.
edited to add. Even if the fairness doctrine was still in force, it would be far less relevant today because it only applied to broadcast stations which are licensed by the FCC and not to cable channels. Because the electromagnetic spectrum is a limited resource, users are licensed by the FCC. Cable channels are more like newspapers and the first amendment means that the government is MUCH more limited in it’s ability to control content.
